Prints too dark. PLEASE HELP

burstintoflame81 · Oct 28, 2009

Well, after looking at the files I had sent to Costco and Walgreens I think I may finally know the problem. Under properties it says "Color Representation: Uncalibrated" when it should say sRGB. I never checked the ICC tab when sending to Costco and just re-sent the same pictures to Walgreens. I am uploading some now to Walgreens to print and make sure this fixes the issue. If anyone has this same problem and finds this post in the future, atleast they will know what to look for. I am no longer using ProPhotoRGB as my workspace either. Just going to keep it simple and use sRGB always.

Does anyone know how to convert a mass amount pics to a different color setting all at once? If not I have to open each pic in CS4 and convert.

Garbz · Oct 29, 2009

If it says uncalibrated it will assume sRGB. The pictures you sent, didn't you say you converted them first to the printer profile? If so that is the mistake. The picture is in one profile but the software assumes another.

Large colour spaces are rewarding if you know how to handle them. One thing the book probably didn't mention is that any 8bit format is insufficient when working with wider gamuts like ProPhotoRGB, and will probably give you a worse image than if you just left it sRGB. The thing with wide gamuts are that in this digital age so few people actually bother to go out and spend the $10 / picture needed to print these incredible colours, and more so many scenes often fall well within the bounds of the sRGB gamut anyway (deep orange sunsets excepted).

These wide gamuts are only useful if you really understand colour management, and actively seek out ways to present your bright colours, otherwise it's a waste of time and can only cause accidents.

In photoshop, goto actions, and start recording, open the file, click edit -> convert to profile, file -> save as, close the file, and stop recording. Then click file -> automate -> batch, select the action, choose the source folder and click override open, select save and close as the destination and click override save as, and run the action

Rifleman1776 · Oct 29, 2009

Prints from Walgreen were always too dark.
From Wal-Mart, they were too light and smudgy.
Not having any other local choices, I now on-line order from Kodak and am very pleased with results and prices.

burstintoflame81 · Oct 29, 2009

Garbz said:
If it says uncalibrated it will assume sRGB. The pictures you sent, didn't you say you converted them first to the printer profile? If so that is the mistake. The picture is in one profile but the software assumes another.

Large colour spaces are rewarding if you know how to handle them. One thing the book probably didn't mention is that any 8bit format is insufficient when working with wider gamuts like ProPhotoRGB, and will probably give you a worse image than if you just left it sRGB. The thing with wide gamuts are that in this digital age so few people actually bother to go out and spend the $10 / picture needed to print these incredible colours, and more so many scenes often fall well within the bounds of the sRGB gamut anyway (deep orange sunsets excepted).

These wide gamuts are only useful if you really understand colour management, and actively seek out ways to present your bright colours, otherwise it's a waste of time and can only cause accidents.

In photoshop, goto actions, and start recording, open the file, click edit -> convert to profile, file -> save as, close the file, and stop recording. Then click file -> automate -> batch, select the action, choose the source folder and click override open, select save and close as the destination and click override save as, and run the action

Thanks. I re-submitted some pictures that were Re-edited from the RAW file and sent as sRGB JPG to walgreens. Still dark. So I guess Walgreens just sucks. I am going to redo a few at Costco this weekend and see if I can get better prints. My adorama pics shipped today also so I will wait to see how they did as well. I would just like to find one local place that can get me a half way decent group of prints quickly if I am pressed for time or something.

Good to know that they would default to sRGB, because the ones I sent to Adorama also said uncalibrated. I know that my printer is printing them well, just not very economical and takes too much time. Atleast it proves that the problem can't be in the pictures.

Now my next problem is trying to get my pics to work decent in Flickr or Photobucket so that I can upload some here without having everyone crush them and say "too dark, needs color adjustment" as if I am a total hack. haha

burstintoflame81 · Oct 29, 2009

Is there a way to directly upload my pics to the forum without using Flickr? The tutorial seems dated, because the place it says to do that, is not showing up on my browser.

rub · Oct 29, 2009

Tell them to turn the auto correct off on your ordr. Makes a world of dfference.

burstintoflame81 · Nov 4, 2009

So I finally solved the problem ( well when I uploaded to the online albums the prints looked fine and not distorted like the prints so I am almost positive I fixed the issue. ) I was "Saving as" a TIFF and then using ACR to convert that TIFF to a JPEG. Perhaps the main issue was not converting to sRGB first even though my workspace was sRGB. Anyway, I found that if I go to Adobe Bridge and under tools click PHOTOSHOP-IMAGE PROCESS, it takes me to a converter within CS4. When I convert to a JPEG of 12 ( ACR only goes up to 10 ) it converts to sRGB and also produces a file about 4 or 5 times the size that I was getting out of ACR. Does anyone know why?

One question I have to anyone reading this is, how do I get to that Image Process section without going through bridge? When I save as a TIFF, it shows JPEG as a compression option, but it will not let me choose it. I looked in the menus inside of CS4 but cannot find "IMAGE PROCESS" under any of them. I would rather save in Photoshop format and then just convert straight from CS4 whenever I need a JPEG for printing.

TJ K · Nov 4, 2009

Can you order prints from adorama? When you sign up you get 25 free yes FREE 4x6's. the quality is always great. GL
tj

Garbz · Nov 5, 2009

Your workspace is only sRGB if you create a NEW picture using File -> New, in photoshop. Otherwise the workspace for the image is whatever the image is opened as. In the case of RAW files in ACR the colour space to import into photoshop is at the bottom. Make sure this is set to sRGB too.

JPEG is just a standard with a million options. There are a wide variety of ways to actually compress a JPEG, some more efficient, some higher quality, and in all cases rather variable. You usually can't go wrong saving the highest quality. Harddisks are cheap these days so don't fret about it

.

If you click File -> Save As and one of the options is TIFF, but there's no option for JPEG, it means that your image is 16bits per pixel per channel, something which is unsupported in JPEG. Click Image -> Mode and select 8bits/channel to fix it, and if you do make sure this is the very last step of your process. At this point you're throwing away information that makes post processing more accurate, but will have no visible difference to you straight up.

The Image Processor is under File -> Scripts in Photoshop. It's designed for batch conversion of images.

burstintoflame81 · Nov 7, 2009

Garbz said:
Your workspace is only sRGB if you create a NEW picture using File -> New, in photoshop. Otherwise the workspace for the image is whatever the image is opened as. In the case of RAW files in ACR the colour space to import into photoshop is at the bottom. Make sure this is set to sRGB too.

JPEG is just a standard with a million options. There are a wide variety of ways to actually compress a JPEG, some more efficient, some higher quality, and in all cases rather variable. You usually can't go wrong saving the highest quality. Harddisks are cheap these days so don't fret about it .

If you click File -> Save As and one of the options is TIFF, but there's no option for JPEG, it means that your image is 16bits per pixel per channel, something which is unsupported in JPEG. Click Image -> Mode and select 8bits/channel to fix it, and if you do make sure this is the very last step of your process. At this point you're throwing away information that makes post processing more accurate, but will have no visible difference to you straight up.

The Image Processor is under File -> Scripts in Photoshop. It's designed for batch conversion of images.

A huge help as always, Garbz, thanks.